Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

I thank all of the Senators for their contributions. It has been a very interesting discussion, with a very interesting range of views expressed, some of which I would agree with and some I would have issues with.

It is very important to restate some of the things I said in my contribution at the start. We must have a firm, fair and effective system concerning immigration and migration into our country. There is nothing wrong with saying or wanting that. It is important not to allow Members to misrepresent the fact that we do not have open borders. We do not have an out-of-control migration system. We have a regulated, rules-based system. We have a system which effectively allows people to come here to work because they are providing essential services. I say to some Members who made comments, which were, in my opinion, ridiculous nearly, about wanting to in some way change the system so that we would not have the doctors and nurses or the construction workers to build the hospitals and houses we need that that is not a credible position and needs to be called out for what it is. We need a system that allows people to come here and work. The most important thing we do every year is to make sure that key, skilled workers come here so we can continue to deliver the services all the people living in this country need and rightly deserve. I will always support that.

One of the Senators made an important comment about the absolute attention paid to international protection applicants. International protection applicants amount to 3 to 4% of people coming into our country. It is right we have a discussion about how we deal with them. It is right we opt in to the migration pact, which will mean we will process people making that application in 12 weeks on average. Do you know why that is right? It is right because it is right for them, first and foremost, because it takes them out of limbo and gives them clear certainty in a regular period of time. It is also right for the country because if we are making decisions at that speed and rate, we are going to reduce the overall cost to the State of providing international protection, which is a key factor. It is wrong that we are spending so much money on IPAS at the moment; the Government recognises that. It is why we want to move to State-provided facilities. It is why we want to cut the cost and reduce the overall number of people arriving. About 80% of people are deemed not to have made a valid claim after they make their claims. We have to have a deportation process at the end of that for those people.

We also have to have the facilities and the integration programmes, which are absolutely critical. There are a number of funds in my Department which are all about recognising that integration is vitally important for those who have come here and will be making their new life, whether they have come here with a work permit or have come and claimed international protection and been successful.

I have very little time, I have to be honest - maybe I should not say that - when people try to say both things simultaneously. There was a contribution made which talked simultaneously about our school system at breaking point and then concluded with the final remark that it is absolutely vital that people come here because they are keeping teachers in place in the school because the numbers have gone up. You have to be careful if they are going to make those type of contributions that you recognise that that is basically contradicting yourself within the space of four minutes. Yes, there are real, valid concerns in communities and we want to address them. That is why we put community integration teams in place, because we recognise we should not have the way in which we dealt with what was an emergency response when the numbers soared after both Covid and the Ukrainian situation. We want a properly planned system. We community integration and involvement. The Minister, Deputy O’Callaghan, and I have both been very clear that we want to negotiate down the commercial contracts, because it is essential. We want people providing good quality, effective, proper services to people who are going through our international protection system.

There are allegations made regularly concerning whether the type of providers or people involved are good providers and whether people are involved in organised crime. I have been opposed all my life, since I was a teenager and entered politics for the very first time, to people being associated with organised crime. I would never support that. It does not matter to me whether it is an IPAS centre, laundering diesel up around the Border or changing currencies. There is no time for people who are involved in crime or doing things wrong. What we have to have is good, clean people providing good services. We will have to rely on some commercial providers for a long time into the future, but the majority of the services we provide should be State-run services, saving the State money and providing first-class accommodation and requirements to people.I would say, in general, in terms of how we are looking at migration, we are going to bring forward a plan next year. As I mentioned in my opening contribution, it will be the first time we will have a migration plan for our country that looks at how Ireland will be in the future and what we want. Yes, we do have to have not only this type of discussion but a willingness to make decisions about the Ireland we want to see in the future. It is going to be different to the Ireland of my youth. When I left school in the 1980s and college thereon, most people emigrated. We came back but an awful lot of us emigrated. We made contributions in other countries first and then came back to make a contribution in Ireland. We are going to have a very different Ireland from this.

If people will forgive me for mentioning "The Traitors Ireland" on RTÉ, I was struck the other night by how this programme represents the new Ireland. It represents people who have come here, including someone who, I heard her say, had come here through international protection. If that programme had been made ten years ago, it would have been a very different type of programme. It shows so clearly that the new Ireland we are going to have will not be a homogenous Ireland. It will be an Ireland that I believe still has to have the basic values we hold dear. These are inclusivity, respect for others, working together, and having a system of rules and laws while recognising we have to do it in a way that is inclusive.

I will take one final moment to speak about the importance of our flag, which I am wearing today. Our flag is a flag of inclusivity. It should not be abused or used in a way designed to send messages that we want to exclude or we do not want to be an inclusive country. We have to recognise what the Tricolour really is all about. It is a great representation of the type of Ireland we surely want to see, not only for the people who are here today but for the people who will be born in future generations and the people who will arrive to our country to join us in the years ahead, which I believe will be to build a much better Ireland.